1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a driver-aid method and device for shifting gears in an automatic transmission.
2. Related Art
As is known, vehicles with automatic transmissions are equipped with driver shift control devices on the driver's side.
For example, control devices are known comprising one or more levers enabling sequential shift of the automatic transmission by the driver, while others simply comprise manually operated buttons (normally two).
The control devices also provide for setting an automatic operating mode, in which shift is performed automatically by an automatic control according to a given optimization strategy.
Automatic transmissions of the above type normally also permit manual shift, even when an automatic shift strategy is operative.
In this case, however, the automatic shift strategy intervenes regardless, and the driver may only “anticipate”, but never prevent or delay, an automatic control strategy shift.
There is also a fully manual operating mode, in which shift is controlled fully independently by the driver, and automatic shift only comes into play in extreme situations, e.g. to prevent damage to the engine (engine speed too high) or to prevent the engine stalling (engine speed too low).